SAN FRANCISCO--If you were looking for the movers and shakers in the world of adult-oriented video games Thursday, most of them could be found here.

That's because about 150 of them--publishers, developers, programmers, writers and marketers--had gathered for the first-ever Sex in Video Games conference. The two-day affair kicked off Thursday with a series of panels, but the real work going on was networking and cementing the notion that the nascent industry can support its own conference.

Throughout Brathwaite's talk, in which she briefly discussed the history of sex in video games and then gave a comprehensive review of the previous year, the longtime game designer talked about the benefits of gathering a group of sex-positive people who agree that video games are a natural medium for sex-oriented material, and one that should be treated no differently from movies, books, comic books or any other medium in which adults choose to examine sex.

But because the conference is an opportunity for many in the industry to learn how to market their games in the post-"Hot Coffee" era--meaning after the 2005 scandal in which the popular game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" was discovered to contain hidden sexual content, despite its being rated for ages 17 and up rather than for adults only--many on hand were interested in talking about what it will take to get the growing number of adult-oriented games off the ground.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday it had reached a settlement with "Grand Theft Auto" publisher Take Two after a months-long investigation into the "Hot Coffee" scandal. Under the terms of the settlement, Take Two agreed to properly label its games in the future and not to hide age-inappropriate content.

"Our purpose (in being at the conference) is we think there needs to be a concerted effort by a lot of people in this industry to be a success," said Brad Abram, president of XStream3D, publisher of "Virtually Jenna," the game based on the life of porn star Jenna Jameson. The conference is "more about the networking (than about the content) and putting faces to names. There are still old-school ways of doing business that are appropriate for any industry."

Anthony Valterra, director of business development for Lamplighter Studios, which creates 3D assets for video games, agreed. He was at the conference to try to nail down deals with publishers, and on Thursday seemed to be succeeding.

"Even though right now a lot of the companies here are underfunded and underexperienced," Valterra said, "some of them have funding and we'd love to work for them."

He explained that he'd gotten at least two publishers on hand interested in his company's offerings.